a day ago
The Lunch Punch Power Hour: Fionn Foley on office life, unhinged
'I knew it was a unique opportunity to be part of work that embodies everything I love about theatre; high comedy, sharp satire and characters that feel real in surreal circumstances...' Actor Fionn Foley introduces Caitríona Daly's new play The Lunch Punch Power Hour in Conference Room 4, coming to the coming to the Peacock Stage at the Abbey Theatre from 31 July.
"What do you do yourself anyway?"
A perfunctory question we've all been asked at some point by a taxi driver, barber or a silence-averse uncle at a family gathering. For actors, it's a tense moment. Do you tell the truth and in doing so, open the conversation up to a wide-ranging series of follow-ups that include but are not limited to:
1) Do people give you money in exchange for doing that?
2) Would I know you from anything? (this one induces existential crisis instantly)
3) Would you, in fact, give 'the ads' a go? (followed by specific brand suggestions)
4) Are you one of the Gleeson brothers? (you're usually not)
"I'm a chartered accountant" I say. And what starts off as a sad attempt at stifling what would no doubt be a well-meaning interrogation of craft evolves into a daring attempt to pass myself off as a gentleman of numbers. A chance to live in the skin of another - like what Daniel Day Lewis would do if he returned to the screen in a film about chartered accountants. However, I am wearing a bright blue bomber jacket, floral shirt and my hairstyle adds four inches to my heightso the taxi driver/barber/uncle has not believed a second of the masquerade.
I am about to play Daniel in Caitríona Daly's The Lunch Punch Power Hour in Conference Room 4 on the Peacock Stage at the Abbey Theatre. Daniel is a Senior Associate at Gresham Professional Services, a hedge fund management firm. He's a thirty-something Offaly man who found himself ascending the totem pole of corporate finance with minimal levels of effort and interest. He's always felt uncomfortable in Dublin, yet he'd be seen as a jackeen in the midlands and this crisis of identity has caused him to start behaving erratically. Like his colleagues Clodagh, Jess and HR Lady Susan (played by the superb Caoimhe O'Malley, Emma Dargan-Reid and Helen Norton respectively) he is only now starting to lift the veil that corporate strictures have placed on his life.
Theatre-wise, I've been lucky enough in recent years to be able to focus on writing (and sometimes performing in) my own work and have been living in London for the last year with my wife and a very large bird-of-paradise plant. However, within minutes of reading Caitríona's deeply funny and intelligent play I knew it was a unique opportunity to be part of work that embodies everything I love about theatre; high comedy, sharp satire and characters that feel real in surreal circumstances. You could say it would have been the perfect chance to perfect my 'chartered accountant-type' persona, but as it turns out, there is no such thing. The Lunch Punch Power Hour in Conference Room 4 follows four individuals that have the same hopes and dreams, faults and failings as everyone else - but are bound together in a corporate system that can only succeed when they are ground down to faceless, homogenized employees. When they reject it, the fun really starts.
